In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln dedicated a national cemetery at the site of the Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania.

In 1917, Indira Gandhi, daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru and, like her father, a future prime minister of India, was born in Allahabad.

In 1924, movie producer Thomas H. Ince died after celebrating his 42nd birthday aboard the yacht of newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst. (The exact circumstances of Ince's death remain a mystery.)

In 1942, during World War II, Russian forces launched their winter offensive against the Germans along the Don front.

In 1959, Ford Motor Co. announced it was halting production of the unpopular Edsel.

In 1969, Apollo 12 astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean made the second manned landing on the moon.

In 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat became the first Arab leader to visit Israel.

In 1985, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev met for the first time as they began their summit in Geneva.

In 2002, in a moment that drew criticism, singer Michael Jackson briefly held his youngest child, Prince Michael II (known as Blanket), over a fourth-floor balcony rail at a Berlin hotel in front of dozens of fans waiting below. (Jackson said he'd made a "terrible mistake.")